Jump to navigation Skip to content
“...this is how you sweep a corner; this is how you sweep a whole house; this is how you sweep a yard...” In this video from 2014, Jamaica Kincaid reads her short story "Girl," and speaks about her life and writing career as part of Journeys, the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of the Chicago Humanities Festival.
In this book trailer for her debut story collection, Know the Mother (Wayne State University Press, 2016), Desiree Cooper reads from "In the Ginza." Cooper is featured in "5 Over 50 Reads" in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise, a documentary directed by Bob Hercules and Rita Coburn Whack, celebrates Maya Angelou with rare interviews, home movies and videos, and archival photographs that offer an intimate glimpse into her life.
Claudia Rankine on black glamour; Dave Eggers launches music project to protest Trump campaign; debut novelist Max Porter on writing and editing; and other news.
“The serious part of it is having a great capacity to be alone—that really is the key...” Zadie Smith talks about the writing life and inspiration, her identity as a writer, and how her routines have changed in a video for Denver Post's Pen & Podium series. Smith's new novel, Swing Time (Penguin Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Often my subjects are the simplest things in the world: joy, family, the weather, houses, streets—nothing fancy. And when I sit down with these subjects, my aim is clarity...” In her acceptance speech for the 2014 Moth Award, Zadie Smith shares her perspective on storytelling and how it has changed over the years. Smith’s fifth novel, Swing Time (Penguin Press, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
In this video from 2011, Jason Diamond reads from “When I Was Good” and “What Ever Happened to the Palmer Mansion” for the Franklin Park Reading Series. His first book, Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know About Life I Learned From Watching '80s Movies (William Morrow, 2016), is featured in Page One in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Michael Chabon discusses screenwriting, fan fiction, and his second novel, Wonder Boys (Villard Books, 1995), with Laurenn McCubbin at Columbus College of Art & Design in 2015. Chabon speaks about his new novel, Moonglow (HarperCollins, 2016), in “Truth and Imagination” by Kevin Nance in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Fiction, literature, is probably the greatest tool that has ever been invented to try to help people understand what it's like to be somebody else…” Gene Yang, host of the Reading Without Walls video podcast, speaks with Michael Chabon about his books for young readers and his lifelong love of fantasy books. Chabon is profiled in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
